New Monorial Idea

[Aroleggim]

Does anyone else find the Disney bus service to be a bit slow and unreliable. Disney should make a central monorail system that goes out to all the resorts and parks. Never do I remember waiting for the monorail. It's quick, efficient way to move guests around the park much quicker.
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[unkadug]

What a novel idea. I wonder why this hasn't been thought of before? :lol:

Actually this has been discussed ad nauseam around here. The major factor against it is the cost per mile would be exorbitant and not a good return on the dollar for Disney.

 

[DisneyJoe]

Buses are more flexible - can take alternate routes in case of problems, etc - monorails have a limited number of beams to travel on, if one is blocked, it can cause major headaches - more so that waiting on a bus.

 

[Thrill]

What a novel idea. I wonder why this hasn't been thought of before? :lol:

Actually this has been discussed ad nauseam around here. The major factor against it is the cost per mile would be exorbitant and not a good return on the dollar for Disney.

Exactly. It's roughly $36,500,000 per mile of track with Mark monorail systems. I'm basing this off of an estimate of $25,000,000 per mile for Las Vegas' 1995 refurbished Mark system, simply adjusting the price for inflation. It's possible that in the last 15 years that there have been technological advances that would bring this cost down, but moving too far from the Mark-based monorail system would either complicate the monorail network or require rebuilding the current system. I don't know what a monorail train costs, and expanding the system to the other parks and resorts would probably require quite a few new trains, and it wouldn't hurt to replace the current trains.

 

[Aroleggim]

Why did the make they monorail system in the first place?

 

[stlbobby]

Why did the make they monorail system in the first place?

Walt loved trains and innovation.

 

[stlbobby]

Exactly. It's roughly $36,500,000 per mile of track with Mark monorail systems. I'm basing this off of an estimate of $25,000,000 per mile for Las Vegas' 1995 refurbished Mark system, simply adjusting the price for inflation. It's possible that in the last 15 years that there have been technological advances that would bring this cost down, but moving too far from the Mark-based monorail system would either complicate the monorail network or require rebuilding the current system. I don't know what a monorail train costs, and expanding the system to the other parks and resorts would probably require quite a few new trains, and it wouldn't hurt to replace the current trains.

That is an insane amount. How on Earth could it cost that much, per mile? The technology is there, there's no R&D costs, so what in the towers and tracks themselves runs the cost up so much?

 

[E P C O T]

Void.

 

[unkadug]

That is an insane amount. How on Earth could it cost that much, per mile? The technology is there, there's no R&D costs, so what in the towers and tracks themselves runs the cost up so much?

Inflation


:lookaroun

 

[Thrill]

That is an insane amount. How on Earth could it cost that much, per mile? The technology is there, there's no R&D costs, so what in the towers and tracks themselves runs the cost up so much?

I honestly have no clue. Like I said, that price was based on a 1995 system, adjusted for inflation. I did a little more research and found an article from 2003 that mentioned a few monorail systems, and averaged those out to about $46,200,000 per mile, in 2003 USD. Inflation adjusted, that's about $54,800,000. The cheapest cost per mile they listed was $20,800,000, which is about $24,700,000 today. I'm not sure if these estimates are being calculated by adding the cost of every part of the monorail system (tracks, trains, shops, etc.) and dividing them by the length of the track, or if they are just the cost of the tracks themselves. Either way, it would be a really expensive project.

 

[unkadug]

I think a lot of these figures are probably propagated by Disney themselves as they can't see a high return on the dollar for the investment into more monorail infrastructure.

 

[techiegsy]

Another monorail thread eh?

Well Comes down to several reasons really
Cost - It is just so expensive for a little return, and no major improvement to the current system
Flexibility - For example, it's much harder to lay on a few more monorails to Epcot at 10 without causing major disruption to the rest of the line. You can only have so many at once, so adding them in can only go so far...
Stations - To stop at every resort (thinking how many on property) would be a nightmare and consequently one monorail loop could be used for 10 or more resorts. This causes major congestion, and a slow service. You have to stop and wait at every one, wait for the train ahead to pass out of the area etc... It becomes very complicated.

 

[drossjr]

Oh boy another monorail thread how clever

Next topic should be the right to pool hop! :brick::hammer:

 

[Aroleggim]

Can someone give me a link to the threads where this has been discussed before!

 

[unkadug]

http://forums.wdwmagic.com/search.php?searchid=3219479


edit...I guess that won't last very long. Hit search then type monorail expansion into the keyword box.
Search by titles and show results as threads.

(Not trying to be rude- just explaining the search feature in case you aren't familiar with it!:wave

 

[drossjr]

Welcome to the forums! :wave:

 

[Aroleggim]

i actually did search it. I must have been in the wrong category.

 

[Tigerace81]

Eh, they need to expand the monorail. Seeing as how the bus system gets overloaded and in recent times dangerous (just kidding since the guests were at fault in most of them).

The easiest expansion I would say is to take out the turn through epcot and extend it through Epcot and into DHS with a return route that links up with the other end off the old track. I cant see them expanding to anything else other then DHS.

 

[unkadug]

i actually did search it. I must have been in the wrong category.

Search forums using "search all open forums" :wave:
http://forums.wdwmagic.com/showthread.php?t=441907&highlight=monorail+expansion
http://forums.wdwmagic.com/showthread.php?t=313978&highlight=monorail+expansion
http://forums.wdwmagic.com/showthread.php?t=33641&highlight=monorail+expansion
http://forums.wdwmagic.com/showthread.php?t=96689&highlight=monorail+expansion
http://forums.wdwmagic.com/showthread.php?t=96689&highlight=monorail+expansion
http://forums.wdwmagic.com/showthread.php?t=71947&highlight=monorail+expansion
http://forums.wdwmagic.com/showthread.php?t=68230&highlight=monorail+expansion
http://forums.wdwmagic.com/showthread.php?t=68230&highlight=monorail+expansion
http://forums.wdwmagic.com/showthread.php?t=56182&highlight=monorail+expansion
http://forums.wdwmagic.com/showthread.php?t=11160&highlight=monorail+expansion
http://forums.wdwmagic.com/showthread.php?t=50001&highlight=monorail+expansion
http://forums.wdwmagic.com/showthread.php?t=50001&highlight=monorail+expansion
http://forums.wdwmagic.com/showthread.php?t=41963&highlight=monorail+expansion
http://forums.wdwmagic.com/showthread.php?t=42101&highlight=monorail+expansion
http://forums.wdwmagic.com/showthread.php?t=36511&highlight=monorail+expansion
http://forums.wdwmagic.com/showthread.php?t=36511&highlight=monorail+expansion
http://forums.wdwmagic.com/showthread.php?t=33604&highlight=monorail+expansion
http://forums.wdwmagic.com/showthread.php?t=32410&highlight=monorail+expansion
http://forums.wdwmagic.com/showthread.php?t=29703&highlight=monorail+expansion
http://forums.wdwmagic.com/showthread.php?t=29531&highlight=monorail+expansion
http://forums.wdwmagic.com/showthread.php?t=27575&highlight=monorail+expansion
http://forums.wdwmagic.com/showthread.php?t=24437&highlight=monorail+expansion
http://forums.wdwmagic.com/showthread.php?t=19711&highlight=monorail+expansion
http://forums.wdwmagic.com/showthread.php?t=13758&highlight=monorail+expansion